Dolphins fish for public money, but will South Florida bite?

Broward off the hook as latest Sun Life Stadium upgrade proposal unveiled

Sun Life Stadium modernization rendering

January 14, 2013|Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist

The Miami Dolphins have gone fishing again, seeking as much as $187 million in public money to refurbish their private stadium, and the bait is on the hook. Super Bowls! College football championship games! A new big-time international soccer event during summer's dog days! Tourists! Jobs! Purported economic benefit for the whole South Florida region!

"This is strictly a Miami-Dade effort," Dolphins president Mike Dee said Monday.

Two years ago, Broward politicians quickly rebuffed the team's bid to use Broward tourist taxes for upgrades to Sun Life Stadium, which sits in Miami-Dade County.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross seemed reasonable, pledging to pay for half the projected $375 million renovation while making it "a win-win" for the community. And much of Monday's pitch seemed palatable, with the bulk of the public's share coming from a proposed one-percent hike in hotel bed tax in Miami-Dade.

But I still can't shake the sense this is just plain wrong.

Why does a billionaire owner in a gazillion-dollar sports league with millionaire employees need taxpayer support to spruce up a private facility?

When you get right down to it, this proposal still amounts to a perverse form of corporate welfare, with public money being diverted so that those who can still afford to attend football games can have the latest "creature comforts," as the architect put it, and a partial roof over their head.

Heaven forbid if sports fans — or the corporate titans and VIPs who populate the stands at Super Bowls — should get wet or sunburnt.

The nerve of these sports folks never ceases to amaze me.

Asked if he'd be willing to put the bed-tax proposal to a vote by Miami-Dade residents, Ross said, "That's really not a possibility."

The Dolphins will also seek a $3 million annual state sales tax rebate for 30 years on goods and services sold at the stadium. The proposal needs approval by the Florida Legislature, and it could be a tough sell since other Florida sports teams only get a $2 million rebate.

I find these rebates distasteful because that money would otherwise go to the state's general revenue fund, which pays for public schools, universities, Medicaid and social services. The amount is small when compared to the overall state budget of $65 billion, but the principle still bothers me.

And for all the talk of "public-private partnerships," usually the public gets the short end of these deals. Just look at the Panthers' arena in Sunrise and its lopsided revenue-sharing agreement that has given more than 99 percent of the arena profits to the team.

This Dolphins upgrade proposal might seem better than a lot of the horrible stadium deals that have come before. But in good conscience, I don't see why Miami-Dade politicians or the Legislature should bite.